Beautiful Britain Part 1

Beautiful Britain.

by Gordon Home.

CHAPTER I

THE PILGRIM'S APPROACH TO THE CITY

It was on April 24, 1538, that a writ of summons was sent forth in the name of Henry VIII., "To thee, Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of Canterbury"--who had then been dead for 368 years--"to appear within thirty days to answer to a charge of treason, contumacy, and rebellion against his sovereign lord, King Henry II." But the days pa.s.sed, and no spirit having stirred the venerated bones of the wonder-working saint, on June 10 judgment was given in favour of Henry, and it was decreed that the Archbishop's bones were to be burnt, and his world-famous shrine overlaid with gold and sparkling with jewels was to be forfeited to the Crown. Further than this went the sentence, for Thomas of Canterbury was to be a saint no longer, and his name and memory were to be wiped out. The remains were not burned, but throughout the land every statue, wall-painting, and window to the said Thomas Becket was rigorously searched out and destroyed, and from every record his name was carefully erased. And so it came about that the year 1538 saw the last pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas the Martyr.

A growing incredulity had prepared the way for this wave of iconoclasm, and the shrine once destroyed ended for ever this first phase of the Canterbury pilgrimages. It might have been truly thought, if anyone ever gave a moment to such speculations a century ago, when Englishmen cared little for the landmarks of their island story, that the last pilgrim who would ever wend his way along the old road to Canterbury had died in the sixteenth century, and yet how profoundly untrue would that impression have been in the light of the new enthusiasm for the site of the shrine! A considerable literature on the Pilgrims' Way from Winchester has already sprung up, and this little book is itself a souvenir for the pilgrim to carry away as evidence of the journey he has made, provided he cares to write inside the cover his name, the date of his visit, and the two words "at Canterbury."

Now, I do not disguise the fact that many of the twentieth-century pilgrims are not possessed of the true spirit of the devotee, and instead of approaching the object of their journey by the old-time way, along the beautiful hills of Surrey and Kent, they use the iron road which rushes them all unprepared into the city of the saint-martyr. But who will maintain that all those who formed the motley throng of the medieval pilgrimages came with their minds properly attuned, and who is prepared to say that because the majority of modern pilgrims consummate their aim by using the convenience of the railway they are less devout than Chaucer's merchant, serjeant-at-law, doctor of physic, and the rest who rode on horseback--the most convenient, rapid, and comfortable method of travel then available?

There is, however, a material disadvantage suffered by those who use the railway, in that they miss the first view of the Cathedral city set in the midst of soft-swelling eocene hills, which comes as the first stage of the gradual unfolding of the tragic story. The lukewarm pilgrim should therefore remember that he will add vastly to the richness of his impressions if he deserts his train at Selling or Chartham and walks the rest of the way over Harbledown, where he will see the little city of the Middle Ages encircled with its ancient wall and crowned by the towers of its cathedral very much as did the cosmopolitan groups of travel-soiled men and women who for century after century feasted their eyes from the selfsame spot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRIST CHURCH GATEWAY, CANTERBURY.

This beautiful entrance to the Cathedral precincts was built between 1507 and 1517. The richly sculptured stone has weathered exceedingly.]

CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF CANTERBURY

It would be a mistake to imagine that it solely was due to that b.l.o.o.d.y deed perpetrated on a certain December afternoon back in Norman times that Canterbury occupies a place of such pre-eminence in English history, for the city was ancient before the days of Thomas of Canterbury; and in this short chapter it is the writer's endeavour to indicate the position of that tragic occurrence in the chronology of the former Kentish capital.

The earliest people who have left evidence of their existence near Canterbury belong to the Palaeolithic Age; but as it is not known whether this remote prehistoric population occupied the actual site, or even whether the valley may not have then been a salt-water creek, it is wiser in this brief sketch to pa.s.s over these primitive people and the lake-dwellers who, after a considerable interval, were possibly their successors, and come to the surer ground of history.

This brings us to the early Roman invasions of Britain and Julius Caesar's description of the people of Kent, whose civilization he found on a higher level than in the other parts he penetrated. He described them as being little different in their manner of living from the Gauls, whose houses were built of planks and willow-branches, roofed with thatch, and were large and circular in form, but he adds:

All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which gives them a bluish colour, and so makes them very dreadful in battle. They have long hair, and shave all the body except the head and upper lip.

These people, owning allegiance to various chiefs and living in camps or villages defended by earthen ramparts, were attacked by the Roman expeditions which invaded Britain in the opening years of the Christian Era, and there is evidence for believing that there was a British settlement of considerable importance on the site of Canterbury. Of this there remains a lofty artificial mound, now known as the Dane John--another form of the familiar donjon. The Romans called it Durovernum, a name perhaps derived from the British Derwhern, and although their historians are curiously silent in regard to the place there cannot be any doubt that the town rose to great importance in the later years of the four centuries of the Roman occupation of Britain. A glance at a map of the Roman roads in Kent shows Durovernum as a centre for five great ways leading from the coast towns of Portus Lemanis (Lymne), Portus Dubris (Dover), Portus Ritupis (Richborough, near Sandwich), Regulbium (Reculver), and also the Isle of Thanet, and from this important centre the Watling Street ran straight to Londinium. These roads all converge upon the spot where the River Stour became a tidal estuary and where it was fordable, and all who arrived or departed from the ports nearest to Gaul would therefore of necessity pa.s.s that way. Another indication of the size of the town is found in the five Roman burial-places discovered close to Canterbury, and if anything else were needed it is only necessary to look at the walls of St. Augustine's Abbey and many other buildings of the Middle Ages to see the large quant.i.ties of Roman material then available. Wherever any excavation has taken place in the heart of the present city, the foundations of Roman buildings with tesselated pavements and quant.i.ties of pottery, small objects of domestic use, and coins have been brought to light. These remains are all far beneath the present surface, a most significant fact in relation to the transition period between Roman and Saxon Canterbury.

The Romans having finally abandoned Britain early in the fifth century, the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons began to take a permanent form, and the Jutes gained possession of the south-eastern corner of England. During the period of struggle between the rival groups of invaders Durovernum must have been entirely abandoned by the Britons, and the conquerors, having reduced the city to a shapeless ruin, appear to have allowed it to become over-grown to such an extent that when, after a lapse of perhaps a whole century, the town was rebuilt, no attempt was made to dig down to the former surface. The new buildings therefore arose with their foundations some feet above the original level of the Romano-British city. So complete was the gap between the destroyed Durovernum and the Saxon town which eventually grew up that men had had time to forget the old name, and, finding it necessary to invent one, called it Cantwarabyrig, which meant the city of the men of Kent. This t.i.tle reveals the fact that the new settlers had by this time fixed their limits in Kent, and that they had found this site at the junction of all the Roman roads the most convenient for their capital. It was probably not until Ethelbert had begun to reign in 561 that Canterbury became the most important place in Kent, and at that time the site of the Cathedral was outside the town walls. Ethelbert, it should be mentioned, had extended his power so far beyond the confines of Kent that he had authority as far north as the Humber, and Bede writes of "the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of all his dominions."

Up to the year 597 this Saxon capital, of practically all south-eastern England, was completely heathen, saving only the King's Frankish wife Bertha and Bishop Luidhard, who had come over as her chaplain about the year 575, when the marriage with the heathen Ethelbert had taken place. But in the year 597, that famous landmark in the Christianizing of Saxon England, Augustine, landed--if Bede may be trusted for a topographical detail of this character--on the island of Ebbsfleet, where Hengist and Horsa had previously found a haven for their vessels. This is now part of the corner of Kent, called Thanet, and is an island no longer. There Ethelbert, in that generous and broad-minded speech, familiar to all students of English history, while expressing himself as content with the G.o.ds of his forefathers (these included Thor, Woden, Freya, and the rest), yet would place no obstacles in the way of these missionaries of new and strange ideas.

He even provided them with quarters in Canterbury, and in the old church of St. Martin outside the city, where Queen Bertha had been in the habit of worshipping with her chaplain, Augustine and his monks began to preach and instruct all who cared to listen. It seems unlikely that the influence of the queen and her good chaplain should have been entirely without results, and it is quite possible that Augustine found the ground prepared for the seed he diligently began to sow. Bishop Luidhard, whose name should always be linked with that of St. Augustine, appears to have died soon after the arrival of Pope Gregory's mission, and his remains were eventually placed in a golden chest in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, afterwards St.

Augustine's.

The zeal and enthusiasm of the band of missionaries began to bring in many converts. Ethelbert himself consented to be baptized on June 2 in the year of Augustine's landing, and the Saxons soon began to embrace the new faith in thousands, so that in a very few years the Christianizing of England had made such progress that Canterbury became the headquarters of the Christian Church in England, a position it has held without interruption ever since--a period of over 1,300 years. It took England nearly nine centuries to make up its mind to rid itself of the stultifying authority of the Bishop of Rome and to shake itself free from monasticism and the various forms of idolatrous worship which grew up in the sultry atmosphere of the Papal Church; but these great changes have been evolved, and still the ancient city of Canterbury, hallowed with so many memories of saintly lives, continues to be the metropolis of the Established Church of England.

And the imminence of further change carries with it no danger of any break in this long a.s.sociation of Canterbury with ecclesiastical control, for if in the slow grinding of the wheels of Time there should cease to be a State Church in this land, the organization of the churches holding to the Elizabethan form of worship will no doubt continue to be centred and focussed at Canterbury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH WEST.

The state central or "Bell Harry" Tower is one of the most beautiful works of the Perpendicular period in existence.]

As the first church mentioned in history a.s.sociated with Christian worship St. Martin's occupies a unique position, and yet the fabric of the little building does not conclusively prove that it is even in part the actual church of this fascinating period. Cautious archaeologists, represented by Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, regard the earliest work in St. Martin's as belonging to the Saxon period, Roman materials having merely been worked up by the later builders. On the other hand, there are various careful antiquaries who are willing to accept the oldest parts of the church as Roman, and claim that St.

Martin's is a Christian church put up during the Roman occupation.

Perhaps the problem will be solved by further discoveries, but until then it seems wiser to regard St. Martin's as being in part a very early Saxon building, very probably standing on the site of the restored Roman church in which Queen Bertha worshipped before Augustine's arrival. Even if it were possible to state that parts of the walls were Roman, it would not be an easy matter to say whether the building were older than the two early Christian churches of North Cornwall, preserved through the ages by the drifting sand of that exposed coastline; therefore, to write, as so many have done, that St. Martin's is the oldest Christian church in England, is not justified by the facts. Besides St. Martin's, William Thorne, a fourteenth century chronicler, makes mention of "a temple or idol-place where Ethelbert had been wont to pray and to sacrifice to demons," and this building, instead of being destroyed, was purged from its defilements and idols and hallowed by Augustine when he dedicated it to St. Pancras the Roman boy-martyr. When the site, about halfway between St. Martin's and St. Augustine's, was excavated in 1901, it was found to possess a nave about 47 feet long by 26 feet wide, with an apsidal chancel nearly the same width and depth separated from the nave by four Roman columns, and Mr. W.H. St. John Hope, of the Society of Antiquaries, who carried out the operations with Canon Routledge, has suggested that this may be the first church built by Augustine out of Roman materials ready to hand, while the larger one, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, a little to the west, was slowly being constructed. It was not finished when, in 605, Augustine died, and eventually the dedication included the canonized first archbishop of the English Church, who was buried in the building when it was finished. The other great figures of the period--Ethelbert and his Queen, and her chaplain--were also laid to rest in the church.

A few years ago it was only possible to form an idea of this large structure from the Norman north wall of the nave and part of the north-west tower, but now that nearly the whole of the eastern end has been excavated one can see the underground portion of practically all the east end and part of the north transept. Ethelbert's son, Eadbald, having been converted two years after his accession, built another church east of that of Saints Peter and Paul, and this was joined on to the abbey church when the east end was extended about the time of the Norman Conquest. At the same time as he began the monastery subsequently called after him, Augustine appears to have made his headquarters close to another early Christian church within the walls of the Saxon city. This, according to Bede, was hallowed "in the name of the Holy Saviour," and thus arose the name Christ Church--the name the cathedral now bears. In these early times there were therefore five Christian churches either restored or under construction, and they were all roughly in a line running east and west. First there was Christ Church and Augustine's residence--eventually the priory--within the walls, then the embryo abbey of Saints Peter and Paul, with the chapel of St. Mary a little to the east. Farther still was the church of St. Pancras, and farthest from the city walls, on its little hill, St. Martin's. There are other traces of Saxon work in the church of St. Mildred near the castle, but this is much later than anything that has been discovered on the other sites, and Dr. c.o.x points out what he claims as pre-Conquest work in St. Dunstan's outside the city, on the Whitstable Road.

Canterbury appears to have grown and prospered in spite of various attacks made by the Danes until the year 1011, when the city, after a defence lasting nearly three weeks, fell into the hands of the invaders through treachery from within. Alphege, the good old archbishop, was obliged to witness the savagery of the Danes when they burst through the gates and began a horrible slaughter, which included the monks of Christ Church, and it is said that about 7,000 Saxons perished. Not content with all this butchery, they burnt the cathedral. Archbishop Alphege was carried off by the victorious Danes, who at Greenwich gave way to drunken excesses, and in brutal fashion killed their prisoner. The body was brought from London, where it had been buried, back to Canterbury ten years later by Canute, the first Danish King of England, who made what atonement he could by lending his freshly painted state barge for the ceremonious translation of the martyr's remains. Arrived at Canterbury, the King proceeded to further demonstrate his submission to the Church his people had devastated by hanging up his crown in the cathedral which Alphege's successor, Archbishop Living, had reroofed. Canute, having made a journey to Rome in 1031, among other pious resolutions, declared that he would amend his life and conversation, and it was with his help that the Saxon cathedral was properly repaired and decorated.

During the year following the Norman Conquest a fire began in Canterbury, which, besides destroying many houses, reduced the unfortunate cathedral to a roofless ruin once more. Three years later, in 1070, when Lanfranc was made the first Norman archbishop, he decided that the Saxon walls were worthless, and he swept away every trace of the building, which may have been partially Roman, before proceeding to erect a larger and grander pile in the Norman style familiar to him. One feature of the original church has, nevertheless, left its mark on the Norman cathedral. This was a crypt described by Eadmer, the monkish historian, who, as a boy, saw the Saxon church being demolished. It was only a small affair, but it must have been the most remarkable feature of the comparatively small oblong building, for it was not, properly speaking, a crypt at all, but an undercroft beneath the eastern altars. "To reach these altars," says Eadmer, "a certain crypt, which the Romans call a confessionary, had to be ascended by means of several steps from the choir of the singers. Thus the Norman archbishop, in planning a larger cathedral, constructed a crypt under the choir of his new building, and the steps one ascends to-day are there as the direct outcome of the structural methods of rude Saxon times."

Lanfranc completed his new cathedral in 1077, and in his lifetime he also founded the great Benedictine priory of Christ Church, whose considerable remains add so much medievalism to the surroundings of the vast cathedral. Anselm succeeded Lanfranc after an interval of a few years, during which Rufus found it exceedingly desirable to keep the see vacant while the revenues were diverted into the royal coffers, and scarcely twenty years after his predecessor's church was finished, Prior Ernulph pulled down the east end and constructed in its place the magnificent Norman choir, with its transepts and chapels standing with various alterations to-day. This great work was finished by Prior Conrad, who succeeded Ernulph, and the n.o.ble work, which became known as Conrad's Choir, was consecrated in 1130 by Archbishop de Corbeuil. To make this bald statement and omit to mention the ceremony attending it would be misleading; for not only were Henry I.

and David of Scotland present, but Canterbury saw such a gathering of dignitaries of Church and State with their splendid retinues that the historian found nothing to compare with it but Solomon's dedication of the Temple!

This splendid church, representing the finest achievement of Norman master-builders and workmen, rising high above the domestic quarters of the monastery and standing forth conspicuously from every part of the little walled city, then consisting, to a considerable extent, of low wooden houses, had now reached the stage in its development when it was to be the scene of the murder which was to make Canterbury the most famous resort of pilgrims in Europe. This occurred forty years later; but no change in the great Norman church had taken place in that period.

So thrilling is the whole story of Becket's murder that there is every temptation to tell again the tale of Henry II.'s hasty exclamation, and the headlong journey from Normandy to Canterbury made by those four knights whose foul deed history has not ceased to condemn; but for a full account the reader is advised to turn to Dean Stanley's "Historical Memorials of Canterbury." It was in the same year and the same month as his death that Becket had returned from exile to Canterbury after an absence of six years, and at the close of a decade of continual struggle with the King. The Archbishop, having landed at Sandwich on his arrival from France, had been received with the greatest enthusiasm, and the people of Canterbury showed their delight in every possible manner. There were imposing banquets, and hangings of silk were put up in the cathedral for the great occasion; but at the end of this December, on the gloomy afternoon of the 29th, the four murderers arrived in the city. The day was a Tuesday, the day on which all the great events of Becket's life had taken place; for not only had he been born on a Tuesday, but on that day he had been exiled, on that day he had been warned of his impending martyrdom, and on that day he had returned from exile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "ANGEL" OR "BELL HARRY" TOWER AND THE BAPTISTERY.

The ma.s.sive Norman work is seen here in strong contrast with the lightness and delicacy of the Perpendicular tower.]

While leaving the long story to be told with the amazingly ample detail Dean Stanley was able to employ, one is tempted to quote his account of the first interview between Becket and the four knights, for too often the memory recalls nearly every fact of the murder except the indictment, if it may be so called. The four knights had discarded their weapons and concealed their armour under the cloak and gown of ordinary life on entering the cathedral precincts, so that on their first appearance in the Archbishop's private room their aspect was sinister without being immediately threatening. Becket had just finished dinner, and was seated on his couch talking to his friends when the four knights were announced, and he pointedly continued, his conversation with the monk who sat by him and on whose shoulder he was leaning.

They on their part entered without a word, beyond a greeting exchanged in a whisper to the attendants who stood near the door, and then marched straight to where the Archbishop sate, and placed themselves on the floor at his feet, among the clergy who were reclining around. Radulf the archer sate behind them, on the boards. Becket now turned round for the first time, and gazed steadfastly on each in silence, which he at last broke by saluting Tracy by name. The conspirators continued to look mutely at each other, till Fitzurse, who throughout took the lead, replied with a scornful expression, "G.o.d help you!" Becket's face grew crimson, and he glanced round at their countenances, which seemed to gather fire from Fitzurse's speech. Fitzurse again broke forth: "We have a message from the King over the water--tell us whether you will hear it in private, or in the hearing of all." "As you wish,"

said the Archbishop. "Nay, as _you_ wish," said Fitzurse.

"Nay, as _you_ wish," said Becket. The monks, at the Archbishop's intimation, withdrew into an adjoining room; but the doorkeeper ran up and kept the door ajar, that they might see from the outside what was going on.

Before the knights began the recital of their complaints, however, Becket appears to have become alarmed at the demeanour of the four men, who afterwards admitted that they thought of killing him then and there with the only weapon that was handy--a cross-staff that lay at his feet.

The monks hurried back, and Fitzurse, apparently calmed by their presence, resumed his statement of the complaints of the King. The complaints--which are given by the various chroniclers in very different words--were three in number.

"The King over the water commands you to perform your duty to the King on this side of the water, instead of taking away his crown." "Rather than take away his crown," replied Becket, "I would give him three or four crowns." "You have excited disturbances in the kingdom, and the King requires you to answer for them at his court." "Never," said the Archbishop, "shall the sea again come between me and my Church, unless I am dragged thence by the feet." "You have excommunicated the bishops, and you must absolve them." "It was not I," replied Becket, "but the Pope, and you must go to him for absolution."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHAPEL OF "OUR LADY" IN THE UNDERCROFT OF THE CATHEDRAL.

Being entirely above the ground this is not a crypt as it is so often miscalled. The morning light in winter fills the s.p.a.ces between the ma.s.sive Norman piers.]

After some more stormy words the knights became irritated by Becket's contradictions, and swore "by G.o.d's wounds" that they had endured enough, but Becket, putting aside John of Salisbury's suggestion that he should speak privately to the angry knights, began to complain of the grievances and insults he had himself received during the preceding week: "They have attacked my servants," he said; "they have cut off my sumpter-mule's tail; they have carried off the casks of wine that were the King's own gift." To this Hugh de Moreville, who was the least aggressive of the four, replied: "Why did you not complain to the King of these outrages? Why did you take upon yourself to punish them by your own authority?" But Becket, turning sharply towards him, said: "Hugh! how proudly you lift up your head! When the rights of the Church are violated, I shall wait for no man's permission to avenge them. I will give to the King the things that are the King's, but to G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's. It is my business, and I alone will see to it." Taking up such an att.i.tude in front of four men who had come hot-foot to Canterbury with the express determination to seek an excuse for killing him, Becket was sealing his own fate.

For the first time in the interview the Archbishop had a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of defiance; the fury of the knights broke at once through the bonds which had partially restrained it, and displayed itself openly in those impa.s.sioned gestures which are now confined to the half-civilized nations of the South and East, but which seem to have been natural to all cla.s.ses of medieval Europe. Their eyes flashed fire, they sprang upon their feet, and, rushing close up to him, gnashed their teeth, twisting their long gloves, and wildly threw their arms above their heads. Fitzurse exclaimed: "You threaten us--you threaten us! are you going to excommunicate us all?"

Becket sprang up from his couch at this insulting demonstration, and in the state of great excitement into which he could fall when roused, he flung down his defiant challenge that all the swords in England could not shake his obedience to the Pope. The four knights, goaded to fury by other pa.s.sionate words, left him, shouting, "To arms! to arms!" They made their way with an excited throng to the great gateway, where they armed, while the doors were closed to shut off the monastery from communication with the town. The Archbishop seems to have been fully alive to his danger, and yet he persistently refused to take the smallest measure for his safety, opening with his own hands the door from the cloisters into the north transept which some of the monks had closed and barred immediately after they had dragged the Archbishop into the nearly dark building.

Vespers had just begun when the murderers entered, but the singing of that service was never completed. The fear of sacrilege induced the knights to try to drag the defenceless Archbishop out of the Cathedral, but he struggled with such vigour, flinging one of the men down on the stone floor, that they gave up the attempt and killed him with three or four sword strokes, the last of which, as he lay p.r.o.ne, was delivered by Richard le Bret, or the Breton, and so tremendous was the force with which it was delivered that the crown of the head was severed from the skull and the sword broke in two on the pavement.

Canterbury being much divided in its attachment to Becket, the murderers found escape easy, and the general regrets most expressed seem to have been at the sacrilege rather than at the murder.

It is almost incredible how rapidly Becket became St. Thomas of Canterbury. Within a few hours of the tragic scene, when, night having fallen and the great church being closed and deserted, Osbert, the Archbishop's chamberlain, entering with a light in his hand, found his master's body lying on its face, with the frightful wound exposed, the monks had kissed the hands and feet of the corpse and called him by the name of Saint Thomas. What appears to have raised the fraternity to this enthusiastic antic.i.p.ation of the canonization, officially announced at Westminster in 1173, was the discovery that Becket had on beneath his outer robes, and the many other garments he wore, the black cowled cloak of the Benedictines, and next to his skin a hair-cloth shirt of unusual roughness. When the body was being prepared for the tomb this shirt was found to be easily removable for the daily scourging Becket had been in the habit of enduring, the marks of the stripes administered on the previous day being plainly visible. Dean Stanley adds another fact not easy to be believed by those who have never become intimate with the practices of medieval monasticism:

Such austerity had hitherto been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight--to our notions so revolting--of the innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth abounded--boiling over with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double ardour. They looked at one another in silent wonder, then exclaimed, "See, see what a true monk he was, and we knew it not!" and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter, between the sorrow at having lost such a head and the joy of having found such a saint.

[Ill.u.s.tration; THE CHAPEL OF ST. MICHAEL OR THE WARRIORS' CHAPEL.

It is one of the most interesting Chapels in the Cathedral, containing the tomb of Stephen Langton and in the centre of the drawing that of Lady Margaret Holland and her two husbands.]